Sunday, March 2, 2014

A Wandering Mind Equals Memories

When I spend time in my quilt room working on a project, I'm usually either listening to an audio book or enjoying the silence and letting my mind wander.

I scurried around the house this morning doing what had to be done, put a huge pot with about forty-five pounds (okay, maybe a little less than that) of stewing hens in it on the stove to simmer all day, then made it into my quilt room a smidge bit after noon.

It was one of the days when I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and my mind wandered to thoughts of my maternal grandma. She was the only grandmother I had and she played a big part in my growing up years.

Way back about six or seven years ago, when I had about three readers of my blog, I wrote a post on my grandma. I looked it up and felt an urge to reprint it here today.

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My Grandma Maggie

I almost named my daughter McLean. That was my grandma's middle name, and I thought seriously of naming our daughter after her great-grandmother. But I knew it would get shortened to Mac, and I didn't think I wanted to saddle her with that.

Grandma was born in Beith, Scotland, in 1893, and immigrated to the U.S. with her large family when she was fifteen years old. She remembered whole winters in the Old Country when they had very little to eat but potatoes. Hearty stock, but certainly not well-to-do in a financial sense by any means. She married Grandpa when she was just sixteen years old (he was twenty-five), and they raised seven children, a boy born first and then six girls. I remember my mom telling me Grandma had had so many miscarriages that she didn't actually remember how many. Those poor gals of that day and age sure didn't have much in the way of birth control to work with, did they?

I think Grandma was an excellent example of making do with what she had. Grandpa kept a huge vegetable garden, and Grandma canned and preserved everything. She cooked anything my grandpa brought home whether it be fur, fowl, or most of the time, fish. When they were raising their family, what he brought home for the table constituted a large part of their diet. Since he was such a fisherman, there was nearly always live bait in her refrigerator, sometimes not as contained as she would have liked it to be.

My mom worked a full-time job outside the home, and Grandma took care of me and my brother during the day. She came to our house each weekday, cooked, cleaned and cared for us. After that she went home and did her own housework, got a meal for herself and Grandpa, then a couple of nights a week, got "gussied up" (a favorite term of hers) to go out for the evening. Most often these evenings were spent with lady friends at the local bingo hall. What fun they had for the price of a dollar or two. I know because she took me with her many nights, and the socialization involved a lot of chatter and much laughing.

She and Grandpa had a solid but teasing/bickering relationship. He referred to her as "The Old Battle Axe," and she constantly complained about him spending too much time with his "girlfriends" in the neighborhood. Grandpa retired from his physical labor job early because of health problems but was constantly on the go, if not working around their house and yard, then off somewhere doing good deeds for anyone who needed help. Often the women Grandma jokingly referred to as his "girlfriends" were widows, single mothers, or those whose husbands were too lazy to do basic maintenance around their houses or yards.

I can vividly remember sitting in our old family doctor's waiting room when I was probably only six or seven with my mom and Grandma after Grandpa had been brought in there to be checked over after he had fallen out of a neighbor's plum tree he was pruning. I can still see Grandma sitting there turning the broken parts of his glasses over and over in her hands while muttering words about the stupidity of the old coot, and why couldn't he stay home rather than running all over town (he'd only been next door) risking life and limb falling out of a tree and landing on his head.

Grandma believed you should never go out in public without your spurs on (by this she meant make-up and hair done and in nice clothes) because you never knew when you might need them. She was a little woman and being short, she liked to wear high heels (she had really nice legs!), and she loved keeping polish on her pretty fingernails. She had beautiful snow white hair from an early age on, and it always looked nice although I doubt she ever saw the inside of a beauty parlor.

When Grandpa died, Grandma found she didn't like living alone. Each of her children, to the last one, wanted her to come live with them. Grandma decided she would just float around for a while, a month here, a couple of months there, but always ended up spending the longest times at the house with the most or smallest children as she adored wee ones, and she wanted to be kept busy and feel helpful.

She died one day shy of exactly two years after Grandpa did. That was in 1965 when she was 72 years old. Cause of death was listed as leukemia, but I've often wondered if that was true. Not that it wouldn't be possible, but no one else in our large family has ever had any form of cancer (for which we can be very, very thankful, needless to say). Could be she missed Grandpas more than anyone realized.

I have a strong feeling that if I had been blessed with more children, there would have been a boy named McLean or a girl named Maggie. With hindsight, I can now see that by giving a descendant an ancestor's name, it's not only a way of honoring that person but possibly even carrying on their spirit.

22 comments:

Ruth - She was definitely from a different generation. The women (at least those of what used to be called "middle class") then didn't have the choices or opportunities we do now. Her goals and aspirations were much different than ours of today. Almost seems as if she lived "in the moment" much moreso than we do today. Do you think?

Thanks so much for sharing your grandma with us! She's sounds like she was wonderful woman to be sure! I just did a blog post a few weeks ago on how we name kids in our family and what exactly is in a name. So interesting the way these things happen.

Sarah - Yes, I read your post about your family's names. I think we could probably all do a similar post! There have been a lot of little babies saddled with names I think are horrendous, but I still say if you can't name your own children, what can you do? Sure would be nice if we maybe gave a little more thought about the child having to haul the name around for his/her whole life though. ;o]

I do very much like your daughter's first name but I had only heard it once before . . . and it was as a friend's son's name.

Constance Ann Morrison - Many of our grandparents were such a big, wonderful part of our lives. Now it seems we've become such a mobile society that it is rare that children grow up near their grandparents. It's a shame.

It's so nice to have memories of your grandparents - both my grandfathers were gone by the time we (kids) came to be, and we didn't get to spend hardly any time with either grandmother. I'll just share your Grandma Maggie virtually...

About Me

I live with my husband on a small homestead in Northeastern Minnesota. Our daughter (Beyond the Fork in the Road) currently lives in a small cabin in the woods not too far from us.

Our place is located outside a small tourist town and a two and a half hour's drive from the nearest big city. Trips to the city are infrequent, well-planned, and exhausting!

We currently raise chickens and have hives of honey bees. Raising some of our meat and most of our fruits and vegetables is a priority for us; so, along with our birds for meat and eggs, we have fruit trees, berry patches and a huge vegetable garden.

Quilting is my passion, and I could happily spend each day in my quilt studio if I weren't happily spending each day out in the garden. Good thing we have winters up here; Mother Nature helps keep my life balanced.